The master of rehashes, rebrandings and, well, re-launches, Samsung, strikes again today, bringing the Galaxy Core LTE, available in Europe and Asia since May, on T-Mobile USA under the cooler-sounding Galaxy Avant moniker.

Of course, as we’re talking of a T-Mo release, the big advantage is you can get the faux leather back cover-sporting mid-ranger for $0 upfront, as long as you commit to a lengthy business partnership with the Uncarrier, which will force the coughing up of $9 every month for two years.

Really, that’s all the Avant has on the Moto G. The display, which measures 4.5 inches on both handhelds, boasts a humbler 960 x 540 pixels resolution on T-Mo, and the pre-loaded Android 4.4 KitKat is tainted by way too many TouchWiz tweaks.

Hold on, there is actually one other department Samsung trumps Motorola in, delivering a thinner and lighter LTE device with an almost identical 2,100 mAh battery. Oh, oh, oh, and unlike the original Galaxy Core LTE, this clone packs a quad-core 1.2 GHz processor and 1.5 GB RAM, the latter of which is 0.5 gigs north of Moto G’s property.

Huh, I guess in the end the decision between the two is much trickier than initially anticipated. If you do end up choosing the Galaxy Avant, be sure to head over to Magenta’s online store and order it now.

“Worst of all, Magenta’s Galaxy Avant isn’t cheaper than the LTE-enabled Moto G either, costing $216 outright, so a measly 4 bucks south of Amazon’s asking price for Moto’s budget champion.”
– Imagine that, they release a product that is BETTER and it cost less. And you are complaining about what, specifically?

“as long as you commit to a lengthy business partnership with the Uncarrier, which will force the coughing up of $9 every month for two years”
– Do you think they should give it away for free? That $9/month is an INTEREST FREE loan for the phone. If you would rather pay for it all upfront with cash, you are welcome to do so, and no contract is required. If you stop you service, you only owe the BALANCE of the phone. (wow, you really are an idiot!)

Adrian Diaconescu

Guess you couldn’t be bothered to read the post until the end… Also, how is the Galaxy Avant better than the Moto G again? At best, the two are tied, the former having the RAM edge and the latter the screen resolution advantage. Am I missing something?